Capital and Popular Cinema: The Dollars are Coming!

(Hardback)

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Popular cinema has mostly been discussed from a 'cult' perspective that celebrates uncritically its 'transgressive' qualities. Capital and popular cinema responds to the need for a more solid academic approach by situating 'low' film genres in their economic and culturally-specific contexts and by exploring the interconnections between those contex

Reviews

Capital and Popular Cinema makes a convincing case for a more politically engaged form of film studies:
For the study of films cannot be reduced to the chronicling of films and cinema. It emerged as a radical, intellectual endeavour to figure out how, precisely, industrial cultural artefacts condition our everyday lives, and, with that aesthetic understanding, to arrive at a clearer sense of where we may want to be heading. (p. 167)
The comparative model at the heart of the book also responds to the acknowledged need to reshape national film historiography in order to interrogate the impact of transnational flows and exchanges. Given the importance of the distinct national contexts of Italy, Mexico and India within Vitalis model, however, this is not an approach to the transnational that downplays the importance of the nation state but rather positions the national within a comparative framework. Indeed, the book concludes with a discussion of possible future case studies on Spain, Germany, Turkey and Nigeria so it is clear that this is a project that takes seriously Paul Willemens call for a truly comparative film studies, and has considerable potential for further development beyond this initial monograph.
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Author Bio

Valentina Vitali is Reader in Film Studies at the University of East London